Various industries require the use of grinding mills for the pulverization and formation of material to provide a final product. These grinding mills very often include what are known as ball mills and the grinding device within the mills consists of a plurality of steel or metal balls which upon tumbling will pulverize the raw material into its intended form. Natually, during the operation of such a ball mill, the balls will ultimately be worn down and must be replaced.
Various means are presently utilied for the production of grinding balls and one such means includes the cutting of rod material and thereafter forging the same into a substantially spherical shape. The processes obviously include a multistep process in that the rod must first be produced, cut off and thereafter forged.
With applicant's concept a predetermined amount of material at a formable temperature is introduced into one end of a forming tube and the tube is rotated and as the tube is rotated, the introduced mass will take on a spherical form and will cool into a substantial spherical form due to the length of the tube and the amount of time that it takes to travel through the tube. At the end of this tube, the now substantially spherical member is introduced into a die section which is not the typically known hammer-type forge device but is rather a pair of dies which are particularly designed and particularly arranged for sliding movement with respect to one another such that the introduced material will follow a forming path as the dies pass one another which forming path is designed not only to further form and compress the ball into its desired spherical shape but is also designed to drive the ball in a particular direction which obviously is the exit portion of the die.
It is therefore an object of applicant's invention to provide the apparatus and the method for continually forming spherical objects.
It is a further object of applicant's invention to provide a method and apparatus for forming spherical objects such as grinding balls or the like by introducing the material to be formed at a temperature which permits forming thereof and to continually rotate and move this formable mass in a direction which will result in a substantially spherical object being formed.
It is a futher object of applicant's invention to provide the method and apparatus for forming spherical objects such as grinding balls and the like which includes the introduction of material at a formable temperature and directing this material in such a manner to provide a substantial spherical object at the exit end of a forming tube and thereafter introducing the same into a forming operation which will substantially compress the ball and insure the spherical shape and size thereof.
It is still a further object of applicant's invention to provide the method and apparatus for continually forming a plurality of spherical objects such as grinding balls or the like which includes a plurality of forming tubes with means for introducing a predetermined mass of material at a formable temperature therein and by continually rotating these forming tubes, the mass will be moved in a direction which will result in a substantially spherical object being formed therefrom, and thereafter, the balls or spherical objects will be introduced into a plurality of forming dies which dies will compress the material into a desired state of hardness and more positively into the desired shape and size.